


Body and Spirit

by pipistrelle



Series: Armed and Armored [1]
Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Discussion of Death, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24147085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipistrelle/pseuds/pipistrelle
Summary: The Emperor's first nohecharei, the night of Tethimar's coup.
Relationships: Cala Athmaza & Deret Beshelar, Cala Athmaza & Maia Drazhar
Series: Armed and Armored [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1807447
Comments: 12
Kudos: 113





	Body and Spirit

“Go to bed,” the Emperor of the Elflands commanded, and his first nohecharei obeyed him, as they ever did. But sleep was another matter entirely. 

The chambers of the nohecharei were close to their Emperor’s, lest they be needed, and the two beds were divided from each other only by a flimsy cloth screen, so that an attack on one would wake the other. In the few months he’d served, Cala had hardly been out of the sound of Beshelar’s breathing. He knew its rhythms like he knew his own — or like he knew his Emperor’s. 

Beshelar’s breathing now was not exactly harsh, but neither was it slowed in restful sleep. 

“Deret,” Cala said softly. “Art well? Dost thy wound pain thee?”

“We are well enough. We thank you,” Beshelar answered. “The pain is not great.”

He rarely returned Cala’s use of the personal first, but neither had Cala ever detected any hint that it truly offended him. Cala, for his part, thought it ridiculous to use a formal register in private, in his own chamber, with a man whose ashes would one day lie with his own in the Untheileneis'meire, and with whom he would share work and bread for the rest of their lives. Undeterred, he said, “I know a cantrip that might ease thee, or else could send for the physician. His Serenity will be wroth an thou get'st no rest.”

“We observe that you are not asleep either, Cala Athmaza,” came the dry retort. “We see no reason why His Serenity would be less wroth with you than with ourself.” Then, more gently — which for Beshelar meant more gruffly — “Does _your_ wound pain you?”

That startled Cala. “I am unhurt. Thou knowst —“

“We know that great magic is not without cost, even to dachenmazei.” 

Beshelar was right. Cala did have a headache, and a sick soreness behind his heart, and both would be worse tomorrow. But it was no more than he had earned. “I suffer but weariness; ‘twill pass. Thou wilt be longer in recovering than I.”

“We thought you were a maza. Must we tell you that there are wounds not of the body?"

"I do not see what --"

"Have you ever killed a man before today?”

Of course, Cala thought, somewhat dizzily; Beshelar was a soldier. He tried to picture Beshelar’s eternally immaculate breastplate and razor-sharp salute on some muddy churning battlefield of the wild northern steppes. The image seemed to him ridiculous, like something out of a pantomime.

Yet Beshelar’s question hung over them both in the dark. There was no evading it, and in any case what could Cala hide from him?

“Once. Just after my initiation. I was journeying with my fellows to a place of power in Thu-Cethor, and our party was set upon by bandits. It was a lonely road.” A high crag crested with the hardy pines common to that region. A rooster’s crest, Cala had joked to the hostler beside him; a moment later the hostler fell with an arrow in his throat. It had been Cala’s first sight of blood. “I knew no death spells then. I tripped one of the bandits with a tree-root I called from the earth, and he fell into a ravine. ‘Twas not my intent to kill him.”

“And you dreamed of it, afterwards.” Beshelar did not accuse him, nor condemn him. The question was impersonal, almost brisk, like a physician’s probing into the symptoms of a disease he has diagnosed a hundred times. Cala found it oddly comforting.

“Yes. Of the moment just before he fell -- the hate in his eyes. I... dream of it still, sometimes. Though now he wears Dazhis’ face.” 

He had not meant to say that aloud. His mind felt loose and windblown, his face hot, as with fever. It was merely the after-effect of the revethmaz, the great price paid in sense and spirit. It would pass.

Still with that impersonally accepting manner, Beshelar said, “We also dream of Dazhis.”

Cala covered his eyes with one arm, as though he wished not to see Beshelar. Which was silly, as the room was dark as pitch. “Hast thou… I mean — thou wert a soldier. Thou art. Must have seen death aplenty. Thou must think me a babbling fool.”

“No,” Beshelar said at once. “Thou'rt no fool, Cala.”

The unexpected intimacy of the familiar form, unfolding there in the darkness like a sun-blossom, so dizzied Cala for a moment that he nearly failed to understand Beshelar’s next words. “I have killed men — not many, but enough. Some I regretted, and dreamed of, and wept for. I know of what I speak, and I tell thee thou needst have no fear of seeing Tethimar’s face above that ravine tonight.” 

“I strangled the gods-given spark of his soul with my own,” Cala choked out. “‘Twas not with hand nor blade nor tree-root I slew him, but with mine own spirit. I felt his life flicker and fade at my bidding.”

“And thou didst rightly. Thou needst fear nothing from Tethimar’s shade nor memory.”

He spoke with a certainty as immoveable as the foundations of the palace, but he was wrong. It must be faced; Beshelar of all people deserved to know, for if Cala went rotten as Dazhis had, it would be Beshelar who must destroy him.

“In the Athmaza’are, we were taught -- stories. Wonder-tales, but such as give caution, not delight. The revethmaz uses the maza’s spirit to quench another, and the maza’s spirit may return to him warped, corrupted by the poison of murderous intent. There is danger in it for the caster, as well as the victim. Perhaps more danger, for he may die to himself while yet he lives.”

Beshelar snorted. “Now thou speak'st nonsense. Hast killed a scoundrel to save the life of a man thou lovest. Thou wilt not succeed in punishing thyself for that.”

“I --” Cala began, and stopped. A fierce pang choked him at the thought of His Serenity, all scrawny bewilderment and helpless compassion, defenseless under Tethimar's sword. And he felt again the regret, cold and silent as a knife between his ribs, that struck whenever Maia began to smile at him only to freeze and withdraw, as proud as a starving cat that would not take alms where it was not wanted.

And it was Cala who told him he was not wanted. _We cannot be your friend._ What a fool he had been. This night Maia might have been murdered by one of the courtiers sworn to his obedience, in a room full of his devoted subjects, and his last thought must have been whether this was another betrayal by those most closely charged with the care of his life and soul. The tragedies that would have issued from Edrehasivar's death hardly bore thinking about; but Cala found the one he dreaded most was the thought that Maia might never know how dearly he was held in the hearts of those who guarded him.

Without the least hesitation or embarrassment Beshelar said, “He is easy to love, our Emperor. Thou needst not pretend thou dost not. Hast not had a commander, so dost not know, but it is fitting; if thou must kill for a man, ‘tis for the best thou lovest him.”

His plain speech made real the battles he must have fought in, that had seemed out of a pantomime. Concern for Maia had taken up Cala's attention, and rightly so. But neither could he forget that, in the tumult of the critical moment, the blade might easily have severed Beshelar's arm. Or cut short his life. “And is it easier to throw thyself under a sword for such a man?”

“Yes.”

“Deret,” Cala sighed, “I am glad thou'rt not older. Thou wouldst have been wasted on the Varenechibels.”

Beshelar's brief guffaw startled them both. "And thy talents would have been wasted as a quiet scholar."

"Then we are well matched." Cala yawned, settling deeper into the mattress. The wind howled on the other side of the tower's thick stone. Long years of training in the Athmaza'are shaped a man's mind in particular ways, gave him senses and sensitivities that others lacked. With these Cala perceived, as in a dream, Beshelar across the room as a towering pillar of light; his own spirit a blue fire, spent now and banked low, recovering; and the strength upon which it all rested, Edrehasivar VII, outwardly young and hesitant, inwardly shining yet humble, bent but unbowed, like the capstone of a marble archway in the noonday sun. It had not fallen, would not fall. A stone wall surrounded it, but the stones were cracked, and could be pulled down.

And out in the city, the wails of the Tethimada rising like wisps of smoke; but Beshelar was right. There was no danger from Tethimar's shade. He had sought death and found it.

"Hast done thy duty; thine Emperor lives. Now sleep, and speak no more treason against the Varenechibels," Beshelar was saying. This time, Cala obeyed.


End file.
